This blog serves my Congress course (Claremont McKenna College Government 101) for the spring of 2018.

ABOUT THIS BLOG

I shall post videos, graphs, news stories, and other material there. We shall use some of this material in class, and you may review the rest at your convenience. You will all receive invitations to post to the blog. (Please let me know if you do not get such an invitation.) I encourage you to use the blog in these ways:

To post questions or comments about the readings before we discuss them in class;To follow up on class discussions with additional comments or questions.To post relevant news items or videos.

There are only two major limitations: no coarse language, and no derogatory comments about people at the Claremont Colleges.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Summing Up I

Democrats are worried that if Trump adds two Democrats to his Cabinet -- potentially North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin -- the balance of power in the chamber could tilt further to the GOP. So they are making the case to their colleagues to stay put.
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If Manchin and Heitkamp were to leave for the Trump administration, the GOP would have a clear shot to pick up the open seats in 2018. In West Virginia, the Democratic governor, Earl Ray Tomblin, would fill the open seat until the next election in the red state. And in North Dakota, a special election would occur within 95 days of the vacancy, giving the GOP an immediate chance to grow their numbers in the first year under Trump.

Scott Levy in the Straus reader (p. 36): "How does one discern a well-drafted bill from a poorly drafted one? How does one distinguish a drafting error from a questionable policy decision? To be honest, I do not know that we can."

SENATE TAKES A MULLIGAN— Turns out that in the Senate, you can pass a bill – and then take it right back. On Monday afternoon, the Senate easily cleared money-laundering legislation from Sens. Richard Shelby and Sherrod Brown and then almost as quickly, reversed its passage. Sources tell Huddle that the Democratic cloakroom had accidentally OK’d the hotline request that had included the terrorism financing measure and other items, without registering an objection that came from their own side. Hey, mistakes happen.

So where did that objection come from? West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who along with three other Democrats from coal states has vowed to gum up the works on anything and everything in the Senate until legislation regarding health care and pensions for coal-miners gets addressed in the chamber. Confirming the hold, a Manchin spox emailed us: “We are going to object to everything going forward.”

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

On January 12, 1991, House Speaker Tom Foley (D-WA) spoke about the impending Gulf War. This is what grownups look like: